


The life of a writer

by Crazybarks42



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Stalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 01:17:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15830769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazybarks42/pseuds/Crazybarks42
Summary: Nick Wilde never would've thought that writing a few books would've changed his life in the way that it did, but it did. Now he has fans, a nice apartment, and a stalker he doesn't know about.That's going to change soon.Based off the Stalker Judy art, drawn by Another-Wildehopps-Blog over on Tumblr: https://another-wildehopps-blog.tumblr.com/post/175318337292/





	The life of a writer

Waking up was always the worst part of sleeping. Lying in bed for ten to forty minutes until sleep came was bearable. The several hours of unconscious hallucinating/emptiness was enjoyable. Like being dead but also alive. Then suddenly, that had to end. And it couldn’t end nicely. You either woke up still tired and thought, ‘Oh just a couple more minutes,’ And suddenly it’s ten years in the future. The kid you didn’t know you had is grown up and has kids of his own. The stock market has crashed. Paper currency has been overthrown, people trade with food. The Hunger Games happen.  
Or, you wake up with a horrible taste in your mouth. And rather than deal with it, Nick Wilde stared at his ceiling pondering all this while wishing he was still asleep. But he knew closing his eyes for ‘a few more minutes’ would mean he’d wake up past noon. Now that he had actual things to do, that wasn’t allowed.  
So looks like time to get up. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, leaning on one arm, and using the other to attempt to wipe the sleep from his eyes with a light groan. The glass of water he left on his bedside table for moments like this was empty – odd, he recalled only drinking half of it before he fell asleep. He shrugged; studying the empty glass wasn’t going to make it appear, chances are he drank it at some point and forgot about it.  
Carrying the glass with him, he rose out of bed, sauntering out of his bedroom into his apartment. It was one of the nicer apartment buildings in the downtown district, one he regularly stared at on his way home to his old apartment and dreamed of staying in. He never would have imagined actually living in it. Hell, it was mostly thanks to the fact that the old badger who owned the place was a fan of his work. If he knew that just by writing a few books he was going to end up here, he would’ve given up on the conman routine with Finnick ages ago and bought the computer as soon as – did he leave it on last night?  
Power saver mode was on, but the on light was still there. Hitting the spacebar caused the screen to light up, on the word document of the latest book he was writing. He could’ve sworn turning it off before going to bed. He _had _been working on it late. It was close to being completed and he wanted to give it to his editor as soon as possible, always enjoying the annoyed texts he got whenever they read page after page of his horrific spelling, which looked like it had been corrected.__  
Nick read through the previous page. He was a good writer but a terrible speller, yet it looked like a majority of the red underlines were gone and words were correctly spelled. Did he do that? Maybe that’s when he finished off the water.  
He couldn’t shake the odd feeling that that would be something he’d remember. Plus, he knew that even with auto-correct and spell checker he could never spell words like ‘necessary’ yet there it was, with the right number of C’s and S’s.  
Man, he had a really bad memory if he couldn’t remember doing this. As much as he’d have loved to ponder what else he got up to at night, this new author life had brought plans and a schedule, so he saved the document and turned off the computer, moving to the kitchen to get some breakfast.  
There was that interview to go to, then he had plans to meet up with Finnick for lunch. But first things first. Food. Then pants.

__It was late in the afternoon when he finally got back home. The interview went well, a surprising number of animals showed up despite the fact it was held in a small bookstore in the corner of God knows where. He was still startled by the reception he got from his books. Everyone there had one of his older books to be signed, the question and answer session went fine and there were only two weirdos there. A hooded smaller mammal (he couldn’t make out their gender or species, they didn’t come near him either to ask a question or get a book signed, just sat at the back and… stared. Still, they didn’t raise a ruckus, unlike the other one, a pig who began answering Nick’s questions for him, despite multiple requests for him to stop, and when Nick finally answered one instead, just stood up and yelled that Nick, the author, had gotten something in the book wrong. He got escorted out. That was the first time he noted that first animal looked away from him – they stared after the pig being escorted out.  
After that, the questioning went smoothly, then he signed some books, noting that the hooded mammal seemed to have left. Afterwards he visited Fin, and they went out for lunch. They caught up, shot the shit, etc. It turned out Fin was running low on money and was asking if Nick wanted to help out in a con. Nick agreed, always willing to help out one of his few friends and make a little extra spending money. They split ways shortly after that. Nick walked straight to the nearby supermarket on his way home. Ingredients for dinner, and breakfast tomorrow. Some writing snacks. Some wine for fine drinking, and then some beer for just getting drunk. He kept getting the feeling of being watched, but after glancing around three times and only seeing other shoppers, he chalked it up to paranoia, and made his way to the checkout._ _

__The walk home was uneventful, and he got in the door without any hassle. He set off bringing out the groceries he’d bought out on the bench, turning on the tv in the living room so he didn’t have to cook in silence. He chopped up vegies for some stir fry while the news reporter talked about a new park being set up in the downtown area. Those were always exciting. Onions, carrots and the hard vegetables, once sliced were thrown in the pan first.  
_It was discovered at around two today, the body of Jacob Hamlet in an alley in the Downtown district. ___  
Nick paused, glancing up at the television. Death was always exciting. He felt a lot less excited after the face of the victim was shown.  
It was the pig from the interview. The loud one that got kicked out.  
…Did he go out and get himself killed? Was he mad enough that he pissed off the wrong guy or was this accidental?  
_The body was found by a canine passer-by who allegedly smelt blood and investigated. Jacob had been stabbed twice. Police admit the stabbing looked too accurate for a mugging gone wrong but refuse to speak more on the subject. ___  
Nick muted the tv. Pig got kicked out then got stabbed. Wow. Couldn’t have happened to nicer person. He couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. He had been the one to request the pig be removed. If he’d let him stay, maybe he would still alive?  
The smell of the onions burning brought him back to reality. Better finish cooking. The sooner he cooked, the sooner he’d eat. 

He awoke the next morning with a book in hand. Looked like he’d fallen asleep while reading. Last time he did that the electricity bill had a little spike in it. Yet it looked like he’d managed to turn the light off. Yet if he did that, he would’ve put the book down as well. So why was the light off? He already knew the glass on the table would be empty before he checked but did so anyway. Yep.  
Did someone come into his room while he was sleeping? …just to drink his water and turn off his light? Yeah right paranoia. Maybe he just drank it while trying to read in the dark. That was apparently bad for his eyesight, but he was an idiot.  
He shoved the thoughts of people breaking in to drink his water out of his mind and thought about what he was doing today. He had another bookshop interview to go to, the last of a while, thankfully. Then he had that thing with Finnick. Looks like he’d better get out of bed.  
Like yesterday, the interview went well. Nobody had to be escorted out this time, but he did note the same hooded mammal at the back watching him. Once again, they didn’t say anything. He shrugged and went back to the questions. Some wanted to know more about the setting of the books, others wanted to know about him. What had made him start writing, why he was so good. A wolf asked him what he was doing tonight. He responded he was flattered, but he was staying the night at a friend’s. He missed the wolf grin as he responded, as a doe quickly jumped and caught his attention.  
On the way home he got a text from Fin. Something had come up and he needed to cancel. Nick texted back an unhappy face, but quickly followed with ‘Okay, hit me up if you need anything.’ He slid his phone into his pocket. Looks like another night of cooking a single meal and writing. Maybe he’d just get an early night. Debating everything else, once he'd entered his apartment he realised how tired he felt. Maybe he'd just cook something small and go to bed. That seemed like an elegant solution 

]It was maybe one in the morning when Nick awoke. He slowly rose to sit, unsure why he’d suddenly woken up. He glanced to his glass, seeing it was still half-full. Finally. He picked it up, draining it. Then, something he apparently hadn’t done for the past two nights, decided to refill it, getting out of bed, and walking through the living room to get to the kitchen, using his night vision to guide him. Until he reached the kitchen and noticed something odd. He hit the light switch to confirm what he was seeing.  
The person in his kitchen turned to look at him. Nick recognised him instantly. It was the wolf at the signing, the one who had asked him if he had any plans tonight. Oh. That now makes sense.  
“You’re not supposed to be here.” The wolf said, accusingly.  
“My, uh… plans changed?” Nick responded. He glanced over his shoulder at the living room. There was a baseball bat hidden behind one of the little cupboards near the television. He’d left his phone in his pants which were probably crumpled at the foot of his bed. Maybe if he could just reach the bat…  
Glancing back triggered something with the wolf who ran at Nick. Nick snapped back to the intruder, throwing what he happened to have at hand, the glass, at him before bolting to where the bat was.  
The reason he’d wanted to be a scout rather than a baseball player when he was younger was because he _sucked _at baseball. As evidenced from the glass that flew over the wolf, who effortlessly ducked under it, not losing his momentum, and tackled Nick to the ground, winding him. The fox flipped to face his attacker, trying to hit at the bigger canine. Unfortunately, he was built for charisma, and was quickly overpowered, the wolf positioning himself to be kneeling on the fox’s lower body, trapping his legs, and his arms clenched Nick’s wrists.__  
Nick looked helplessly up at the intruder, trying desperately to get his breath back to yell. The wolf leaned down looking him square in the eyes.  
“You have no one to blame but yourself for this.” He whispered.  
Nick would’ve liked to disagree, but as he managed to get enough air into his lungs to speak or yell, the wolf moved one of his paws, this time wrapping it around Nick’s throat. His gasps became more choked and mixed with gurgles. The other paw moved from his wrist to complete the pair wrapped around his neck. The wild punches he threw in an attempt to hit the wolf fell short of their mark. Confounded wolves with longer arms than foxes. His left arm was close to the table. Maybe he could knock the table hard enough to knock over that vase of flowers he had on there. He only got one soft hit before the wolf, seeing what he was doing, moved his hand to grab Nick’s. The pressure on his neck stayed the same.  
Well. This was how he was going out. Strangled by a burglar on the floor of his apartment. He guessed there was worse ways to die, but – someone just opened the door to the kitchen. It looked like that hooded mammal from the signings. Were they buddies with this wolf?  
The answer to that was no. The newcomer ran to the wolf and jumped on their back, putting an arm under his chin and putting him in a choke hold. The pressure on Nick’s neck instantly left as the wolf raised both paws to wrench the arm from his throat. The fox, collecting what strength he had left, swung his left fist up and around, cracking into the side of the wolf’s lowered face, causing him to stumble off his body. The wolf, somehow staying on his feet, turned and slammed his attacker into the wall, who grunted, revealing them to be a lady, and let go falling to the ground, but landing on her feet. The wolf spun, bringing around a wild attack, misjudging how tall his attacker was. The fist missed her by a considerable margin. Her counterattack involved bringing out a knife and jumped to stab him up into his ribs.  
He let out a surprised gasp. It was always shocking to get stabbed. He stumbled backwards, away from her. Nick, seeing this, stretched out a leg and the wolf tripped falling back onto the ground, smacking his head on one of the chairs as he went down.  
She moved to the wolf’s side. He began saying something softly to her, but she didn’t listen. Instead she drew her knife out of his chest, before making a more accurate stab, aiming and then driving it home. The wolf made a choked gasp, shuddered, before becoming still.  
Nick had recovered enough to rise to a sitting position, where he looked at his saviour. Her hood had fallen back to reveal long ears and when she turned after wiping her knife clean on the wolf’s clothing, it revealed light grey fur and a little twitchy nose.  
She’s a rabbit.  
Huh.  
They stared at each other. Nick didn’t have the strength to stand yet, and she didn’t seem to want to move until she’d seen how he’d react. He reacted by glancing from her to the body of the wolf. If not for her, he’d be dead. Instead, it was the wolf bleeding out onto the floor. He looked back up at her. How’d she get in? Was she the one that kept coming in after he’d gone to sleep and drinking his half-drunk water? Another glance at the wolf changed that train of thought. She could break in whenever she wanted to after saving his life.  
He managed a smile, “Thank you.” He said.  
Her eyes widened. A thanks hadn’t been what she’d expected. After a moment, the shocked look was replaced with a smile. Without saying anything, she turned and left the way she came, stepping over the corpse on the way out.  
Nick sat where he was until he could muster enough strength to walk. He stood and using the walls to steady himself, moved to where his phone was to call the police about the body in his living room.  
He’d make sure to leave some cookies out for next time she broke in.

**Author's Note:**

> A little longer than expected and feels kinda rushed in parts, but here it is.  
> First time posting on AO3 so let's hope this turns out alright.  
> Thanks for reading. Be sure to check out the blog that inspired this piece of writing.


End file.
